The libertarian/market-anarchist philosophy would seem to discount any notions of space travel in the near future. Sure, says the conventional wisdom, space could potentially be extremely profitable someday. But first, the infrastructure to support a space-faring society needs to be built, and that just can't be done with any hope of profit in the immediate future. CEOs aren't generally concerned with money that won't roll in until ten years after they die, so it would seem that private space travel has been doomed in its infancy by the perpetually short-sighted market. Enter NASA bureaucrats, exit any chance of using space travel for anything other than John Glenn-style publicity stunts.
There's some truth to this notion but not much. While the private sector has yet to seize upon the opportunities of space travel, this can hardly be construed as a failure on the part of capitalism. If anything, it's the government's fault for reducing the marketplace to its current, near-static position there's no reason to take risks on things such as space travel. Companies can pump out shoddy, terrestrial crap, and if they get into trouble, Uncle Sam has a bottomless bag of money to bail them out with (commonly known as "the American People"). However, once a few fairly minor obstacles are overcome, humanity's expansion throughout the solar system can be fueled by the possibility of carving a fortune out of the interplanetary wilderness.
Getting Off the Ground
At present, you have about as much chance of making money off of outer space as Ted Kennedy does of leaving the bar with his pants. The key obstacle is that of launch costs they are simply astronomical (and that, hopefully, will be my last unintentional pun). NASA currently puts people and equipment into space at the exorbitant price of $100,000 per kilogram. Considering all of the staff and equipment needed to establish even the smallest industrial enterprise in orbit, any smart businessman is likely to remain on Terra Firma. How do we bring down these prohibitive costs?
Well, as you might have guessed, this obstacle is almost entirely the product of the government's monopoly over space travel. So much bureaucratic red tape is involved that the cost goes far beyond that of simply building a rocket and pointing it at the sky most of that $100,000/kg is overhead. When you consider the fact that the government has, in the past, paid $40 for a hammer and $100 for a toilet seat, it's a miracle they even got launch costs that low.
A private launch, on the other hand, would be a lean, efficient, focused matter they are, after all, in this for the money. Even without some of the fully-reusable launch systems currently in development, it's not too optimistic to reduce the cost of a for-profit launch by a factor of ten down to a relatively svelte $10,000/kg. This puts space travel for commercial purposes just inside the realm of feasibility.
Earning A Living
Let's assume a private corporation can pony up the necessary capital for an economic venture outside the atmosphere. Just how are they to make money out there?
At present, several companies are making a perfectly good living by putting satellites into orbit for commercial purposes cell phones, TV, things like that. However, other than for modest signal-transmission purposes, Earth orbit is likely to remain largely uncolonized there is, after all, nothing there to colonize. Much has been made of the potential manufacturing benefits of a zero-gravity environment, but the fact remains that all essential equipment and raw materials, not to mention food, air, and water, would have to be transported to these orbital factories. In all likelihood, it would simply be too costly to turn a profit.
Mars, on the other hand, has true potential. Subsistence on Mars is far less of trick then it is made out to be. Orbital surveys have shown frozen water to be quite abundant indeed, Mars may once have been covered in vast oceans. Breathable air, while not naturally-occurring in the Martian atmosphere, could be easily manufactured from local materials. The planet's CO2-rich atmosphere would be heavenly to Earth plants, so food production wouldn't be a big problem. And, it should be noted, we already have all the materials and know-how needed to put a long-term settlement on the Red Planet. The only problem is, what do we do there?
Well, for one thing, Mars is practically bursting at the seams with mineral wealth. Gold, silver, aluminum, iron, uranium all are hidden beneath the planet's dusty surface. Mining on Mars would be a fairly simple affair, if for no other reason than the abundance of the materials we seek. Mining is such a chore on Earth because, after four thousand years of technological civilization, we're kinda scraping the bottom of the barrel. Huge mining operations on Mars could yield enormous dividends.
Other opportunities for wealth lurk throughout the solar system. For instance, consider the rare isotope Helium-3. This material does not occur naturally on Earth, but solar winds have deposited trace amounts on the moon, and the outer planets possess large quantities of it in their atmospheres. If some enterprising entrepreneur could only tap this supply, he could become rich rather quickly Helium-3 may someday be valued as high as $1 million per kilogram.
Why is this isotope so valuable? As luck would have it, it may someday unlock the secret of fusion power. Current fusion techniques involve a combination of tritium and deuterium, but this process is highly inefficient try as they might, scientist have been unable to generate more power than they put in. Until fusion can be made to produce a surplus of energy, it's all but useless as a power source. However, Helium-3 may be the very key to increasing the efficiency of the process, and in doing so would provide mankind with a cheap, clean, and virtually limitless source of power. (market: 1, tree-huggers: 0)
The troubles of mining Helium-3 on the moon would likely prevent it from being profitable, but harvesting the valuable isotope from the atmospheres of the outer planets could bring enormous wealth. Although getting an operation established out there would be quite a chore manned missions seem unlikely, at least in the short term the incredible value of Helium-3 would make it worthwhile. As aeronautical engineer Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, once put it, the outer planets may someday become "the Persian Gulf of the solar system." (without the dictators and fanatics, one would hope)
A Bridge to the Stars
Let's be honest I'm sure more than a few visitors to this site, myself included, are avowed sci-fi dorks. While we all want to eliminate government interference, it would still fill us with quite a bit of pride for our species if humanity could spread across the solar system. As I've shown here, these are not mutually exclusive goals. Humanity can ascend to the stars, guided not by the oppressive hand of government, but by the demands of the marketplace.
Now, to be sure, a small settlement on Mars and an unmanned mining operation in the outer solar system do not an interstellar civilization make. However, they do serve admirably as that all-important first step. We're not going to exist entirely on Earth one day, and then hitch a ride to work on a starship the next. The ideas I've discussed here would, as byproducts, create a sizable space exploration infrastructure, and more importantly, would establish space travel in the public mind as something more than the daydreams of writers and theorists. Konstantin Tsiolovsky once called the Earth "the cradle of the mind." Before we can learn to walk, or even learn to crawl, we have to climb out of the cradle.
June 18, 2002
